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Showing posts from April, 2020

Why we can't simply stop using plastic

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The plastic keeps on having a significant impact on marine birds  and marine wildlife. Due to its properties like buoyancy and durability, its  transportation  into bigger water bodies is effortless. India alone is projected to produce  15,788 KTA thermoplastic in 2019-20. The immense production is coupled with the fact that it is derived from crude oil  which is a massive industry of environmental pollution in itself. The global plastic industry generates a revenue of about $600billion annually . But the question arises, can we simply stop using plastic? Plastic is a form of synthetic polymer. The first synthetic polymer, Bakelite, was created in 1907 by Leo Baekeland on accident. Plastic was used for industrial purpose during World War 2, secretly by the British and American military. The one-piece polythene  shopping bag was patented by Swedish company Cleoplast in 1965. Due to its immense cost-efficient application, it started controlling 80% of the bag market in Europe  by 1

The real climate activist

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Climate activists like Greta Thunberg keep on capturing media attention as climate change keeps on becoming a critical topic of discussion around the world. They keep on citing climate apocalypse as on their demand for more radical policy changes. But what they are suggesting is actually achievable or is it just a fanciful plan. From 21 to 24 January 2020, 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum(WEF) happened in Davos, Switzerland. This meeting theme was 'Stakeholder for a cohesive and sustainable world'. This meeting mainly focused on tracking and improving global progress on climate change and sustainable economic growth. Greta had an opportunity to make opening remarks on session averting 'climate apocalypse' in WEF. She in her speech criticized government and policymakers on lenient policy regarding harmful emission. She urged governments to immediately halt any investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction. She proposed real zero-emission ec

Simplest Climate Model

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To understand the complex climate model first, we need to understand the most basic climate model and in future articles, we will explore the more complex and ignored concepts in this model. This model is the threshold of climate modelling having a lot of inconsistency. First, let us understand how heat energy is produced. The heat energy is produced by oscillating of atom/molecule. The reason why you burn your skin is that motion of atoms in your skin is increased by coming in contact with a hotter object. This, in turn, rips apart the chemical bonds of your skin ultimately resulting in a burn. Particularly when we are dealing with earth sciences we are dealing with light energy coming from the sun by radiation. Then you might ask that earth is covered by an atmospheric blanket, how exactly can heat energy come in earth. The answer is earth is a blackbody. A blackbody is an object that oscillators at all different frequency and absorbing all incident electromagnetic radiation. Th

Understanding IPCC 1992 report's emission scenario

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Introduction The fifth session of Inter-Governmental  Planning on Climate Change(IPCC)(Geneva, March 1991) distributed six tasks among three working groups. The particular responsibility of the sixth task, which was emission scenario analysis, fe ll on Working group 1(WG1). The emission scenario analysis was a particularly complex document as it included multiple previous study analysis and constant new detailed descriptions of emission. On 1992, IPCC released a full supplementary report that included emission scenario. The Atmospheric stabilising framework(The tool) This framework principally  involves balancing the supply and demand of the global energy system. It combines emission from different sectors. For example energy, industry, agriculture, forest and land-use. Each sector merges assumptions concerning future population, economic growth, resource availability in future, etc. It estimates emission for CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs and substitutes CO, NOx, Volatile organic compo